Male AND Female

Isn’t it fun to watch how boys and girls are so different, right from the get-go? My little Ben, 2, loves to play with trains, cars and trucks, and tractors. He moves them along and makes those little car noises that all boys come knowing. Paul, 4, is continually bringing sticks and rocks into the house, and is currently absorbed in trying to figure out how to make a quality sling-shot. My girls generally prefer either crafts or more relational play, and I never see them picking up sticks to use as guns.

Last week Jonathan had an assignment for his on-line writing class to write “catchy leads.” The idea was to take a number of boring sentence openers and re-write each one several ways. The new sentences had to start with dialogue, action, or emotion. After he worked on the assignment I asked Jonathan how it had gone. “Fine, Mom. I got it all done. Well, except for the emotion ones. I couldn’t do those. I’m just not that kind of a guy.” I worked with him, trying to get him to imagine possible emotional openers, and suggesting possibilities. “I’ve never felt like that, Mom,” he said over and over. I laughed, remembering something I heard a while ago about how boys/men have just three emotions: happy, sad, and hungry. (The girls in his class had no trouble with the emotion part of the assignment.)

This summer a close relative questioned me on this topic of sex differences. He thought that probably differences are forced on children. I said, “Just look at children. The things they play with, they way they interact with others, the way they learn. The differences are so obvious!” He countered that perhaps that was just a result of their conditioning. Sadly, this person is a believer, but at least in this instance he is more ready to listen to the “wisdom” of the age than that of Scripture.

One of the distressing things about feminists is that they try to make men more like women, and women more like men. I really don’t understand this. I am so glad to be a woman, with all that that means. As Christians we should glory in the differences between men and women, boys and girls, rejoicing that God has made us different, given us different roles, bodies, strengths and weaknesses.

Friday and Saturday the mothers and elementary aged daughters in our church had the great fun of a little retreat at a beautiful Girl Scout camp in Brown County. My boys said it didn’t qualify as a camp-out since we stayed in heated cabins and had real beds, but it was perfect for mothers and daughters. What fun to have a female only weekend! We made crafts, ate brownies (and lots of other good stuff) and laughed together. And throughout it all, I reveled in being a woman, a mother, and watching these beautiful little girls, who, Lord willing, will grow to be beautiful women who love and fear the Lord.

Saturday morning we went for a hike to a hollow tree large enough for all ten of our girls to fit inside at once. Here are some of the pictures. Note that most of the girls had to carry a stuffed animal or doll on the hike, something you would never see on a hike with boys!